Montoya's no stranger to Indianapolis

Juan Pablo Montoya has been at the front at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway before. He won the Indianapolis 500 in 2000, his first appearance at the track, while driving for Chip Ganassi.

Now, after a career in Formula 1 that included a half-dozen races on the Speedway’s road course, Montoya has returned to oval racing, but in stock cars rather than open wheel.

Those disciplines require different skills, but enough was the same that Montoya was able to get comfortable quickly Saturday. He’ll start on the outside of the front row for today’s 14th Brickyard 400 and will try to become the first driver to win both the 500 and 400.

“It’s a completely different animal,” Montoya said of the 500. “But I changed my line a bit going into Turn 1 on my qualifying lap, and it helped.”

Montoya turned a bit more deeply into the apex of the turn, using an Indy-car line, and that helped him carry the speed through the backstretch. Montoya, some seven-tenths of a second slower than teammate Reed Sorenson, might well have won the pole had he run earlier, but it was slightly cooler when Sorenson went out second in the rain-delayed qualifying session.

One of the quickest studies in racing, Montoya might pull away from Sorenson today.

“I’m still learning where to go and not to go,” Montoya said after less than four hours of stock-car experience at the Brickyard. “I think the guy to pick tomorrow is Reed, to be realistic. He was quick in practice.”

Merger or buyout?

Insiders differ on whether the combination of Dale Earnhardt Inc. and Ginn Racing, announced this week, is a merger of equals or a buyout of the struggling Ginn team’s assets by DEI.

Teresa Earnhardt wasn’t at the news conference, and Bobby Ginn wasn’t explaining. It’s believed Ginn will hold a minority interest, while the presence of Ginn driver Paul Menard on the revamped roster has led some to speculate that hardware tycoon John Menard, Paul’s father, is helping bankroll the team.

What is known is that of the approximately 700 employees of the two teams, both headquartered in Mooresville, N.C., some 300 are expected to lose their jobs. The combined team will use the 180,000-square-foot Ginn shop, with Ginn drivers Mark Martin and Menard joining DEI’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr.

Earnhardt Jr. leaves at the end of the season and probably will be replaced by Aric Almirola, currently sharing car No. 01 with Martin.

“It’s the trend of the future,” Martin said of the merger, which gives DEI the maximum of four cars in a Nextel Cup field. “You’re going to see more and more of it. The way you’re going to survive in this business is to consolidate so everyone brings more to the table.”

This weekend, the crews of the two two-car teams will barely have time to exchange notes. Next week at Pocono, there will be more teamwork.

Meanwhile, another combination received less attention. Robert Yates, whose team’s engines are famed, is partnering with the Newman-Haas-Lanigan team from Champ Car, which Yates insists is not a merger.

Carl Haas had run a stock car in the Winston Cup days and backs a car in the Busch Series, but stock-car racing is new to Paul Newman, a CART-Champ Car loyalist who hadn’t been back at Indy since the formation of the Indy Racing League in 1996. Asked if he’d missed the month of May, Newman told the Indianapolis Star, “Yeah, who wouldn’t?”

What is now officially Yates-Newman-Haas-Lanigan Racing will continue to run in Champ Car, the open-wheel series that no longer runs on ovals.

“I think the NASCAR and Champ Car teams can learn something from each other,” Haas said. “It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

Around Gasoline Alley

Earnhardt Jr. on NASCAR’s impact at the Speedway: “I’ve read the book and understand the impact of open-wheel here, and we’re just a chip on the block of history.” ... ESPN is using 83 high-definition cameras and debuting a new gizmo called Draft Track on selected replays that is said to show the airflow over a car. An 84th camera was wiped out by J.J. Yeley’s crash in morning practice. ... Joe Nemechek, dumped by Ginn Racing just before the merger with DEI, tried to qualify a car for EM Motorsports but was too slow.

More NASCAR coverage can be found online at www.dailysouthtown.com/sports